Microstar K7Pro AMD 750 Slot-A ATX

The Bad

The biggest issue we had with the K7Pro is that it is based on a chipset that is being phased out instead of a more up to date solution, VIA's KX133. While the AGP 4X support of the KX133 doesn't offer a huge performance improvement over the AGP 2X limitation of the AMD 750 chipset, the PC133 memory support of the KX133 can definitely come in handy, especially in professional level applications that are very memory bandwidth dependent.

We initially had trouble with the SuperBypass feature of the AMD 750 chipset. Our K7Pro had the proper revision of the chipset, but we had trouble enabling it in the BIOS or through software utilities. Fortunately, we found that if you do not use memory timings from SPD, and rather manually tweak the memory settings, SuperBypass can be enabled. Unfortunately, this is a bit more complicated than it should be, but it does work.

We mentioned it above, but it's worth noting again - the location of the ATX power connector prevents the use of some large heatsinks. Also on the side of layout is the poor location of the primary IDE connector, which potentially blocks 3 PCI slots from accepting full length cards.

One other minor note about the K7Pro - MSI was initially shipping two versions of the board with different clock generator chips. All currently shipping models should have the new one that allow the previously mentioned set of FSB speeds. The different clock chips can be identified by looking at the ICS chip near the AGP slot. If it is the "-110" model, you have the same one we received, while the "-64" model features fewer FSB options.

USB Compatibility

• Number of Front Universal Serial Bus Root Ports: 0

• Number of Rear Universal Serial Bus Root Ports: 2

• USB IRQ Enable/Disable in BIOS: Yes

• USB Keyboard Support in BIOS: Yes

Recommended SDRAM

Recommended SDRAM: 1 x 128MB Corsair PC133 SDRAM; 1 x 128MB Mushkin PC133 SDRAM

SDRAM Tested: 1 x 128MB Corsair PC133 SDRAM; 1 x 128MB Mushkin PC133 SDRAM

Manufacturer: Corsair
Purchase Website: http://www.corsairmicro.com

Manufacturer: Mushkin
Purchase Website: http://www.mushkin.com